


Building a new, New Republic

by the_scarlet_01



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Mentions of canon movie deaths, Multi, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:49:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_scarlet_01/pseuds/the_scarlet_01
Summary: Poe Dameron has a lot on his plate. He isn't the only one. His friends are all as busy as he is. Even the droids think Poe needs a break. Too bad Poe can't seem to shut his brain off and sleep, but talking with one of best friends should help, right?**Spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker**
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 1
Kudos: 213





	Building a new, New Republic

**Author's Note:**

> First time back with these muses in a long time.  
> Unbeta'd

Poe Dameron had never felt so out of depth before. A pilot, a military leader, he could handle that. He’d been fighting with the resistance for so long, dreaming of a day the fighting would end. All the time he spent in the pilot seat he’d never foreseen himself as the guy in charge. When he’d first gotten the promotion to General he’d immediately tapped Finn to lead with him. He couldn’t do this alone. There was no one he trusted more than Finn. Poe groaned and pulled up the image again. They were establishing a council that would oversee the rebuilding of the republic. He ended up staring at it but not getting anything done.

“You know you’re allowed to take a break, right?” Finn said as he sat down beside Poe. “What’s going on Poe, you’ve been staring at the same image for awhile.”

Poe sighed. “Just trying to figure out how we got here.”

“We won, that’s how.” Finn grinned.

“Well, yes, but…no.” Poe said. “How did we end up being in charge of rebuilding a galactic government? Sure, we have a bunch of people geared up to help, but everyone is now looking at us. All of them are more qualified than an x-wing pilot that went up, then down, then way up the ranks to be a general.”

“Try being an ex-stormtrooper made resistance general.” Finn stated.

“Yeah, well, I trust you more than I do some of them.”

“Same here.” Finn nodded. “Okay, I’m going to make a judgment call and to put both of us out of _your_ misery.” He said getting rid of the image his friend had been staring at.

“Mine? Hey, we’re both in charge here.” Poe argued.

“You’re the miserable one, and it’s annoying.” Finn said. “So let’s go.”

“Go where? We have to finish this list.” Poe said.

“Oh yeah? And how’s that going?” Finn challenged. “You getting a lot done staring a hole in the table?”

“Yeah, well, someone has to do it.” Poe pointed out.

“Yeah, we do, but it doesn’t have to be now, because if you haven’t noticed everyone else went home.”

Poe looked around, somehow he missed how the command center and office area had quieted and emptied. “Huh, what time is it?” Rose Tico was the only other person still in the command center. She had been working with C-3PO and R2-D2 to translate a set of instructions for those that might not speak basic for something that Rose had created with Babu Frik. Poe was glad to have her on their side. She was an easy choice to have oversee the mechanical aspects of the command center. They were working on upgrading communication systems, especially translation systems and boosting signals. Rose ran her own team and she was a natural at it.

The answer to his question came from the droid that was whirling around room since Finn came in. “Late.”

“Thanks D-O.” Poe chuckled. He was sure the droid knew exactly what time it was. The pilot weighed his options and sighed. “You win, let’s go.” He shook his head at the victorious smile of his closest friend as they both stood to leave. Poe packed up the few things he needed to while Finn went to go get Rose.

Finn grinned as a familiar figure approach them. “We leaving?” Rey asked.

“Yeah,” Finn nodded. “Managed to convince him he wasn’t helping anyone vacantly staring at holo images.”

Poe ignored Finn’s slight dig in favor of grinning down at his favorite astromech. “Hey, Buddy.” The pilot knelt down to fondly greet the BB unit with what his friends referred to as, scritches. He didn’t mind the way people thought he was overly fond of his droids, especially the BB unit he now shared with the jedi. “You still like me, don’t you guys?” He looked between BB-8 and D-O.

BB whirled in excitement, with D-O adding a quick, “Yes, sir.” Poe was sure that if the little green and white droid had shoulders he would have shrugged noncommittally, probably just being polite. He laughed. He did his best to take care of all the droids they’d collected over their time in the resistance. BB-8 would always be his favorite. He’d been through so much with that round astromech. Then again that was why he trusted the BB unit to look after the people he cared about, and vice versa. Really it was BB-8 that seemed to be gathering the droids. Sure Leia had essential given C-3PO and R2-D2 to him, even before his final promotion to general. The R2 unit and protocol droid had been part of the rebellion and resistance longer than Poe had even been alive. So he did his best to look after them, even if he found 3PO frustrating at times. R2 and 3PO had been with Leia and Luke since the beginning. Who was he to neglect them? No, he’d look after his BB unit and the small droid entourage the astromech gathered.

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” Poe grinned.

The small group chatted until the entered the building they’d sort of taken over to house the ever growing leadership and council they were crafting. Rose broke away from the group with the promise of giving them a better update in the morning. She’d given them an impromptu on the walk over. The trio headed up to the top floor, the one the three of them had taken over for themselves and their droids.

Poe unceremoniously dropped down into a chair and let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling for a few moments until a familiar face came into his line of sight and grinned down at him. “I think they finally broke him,” Rey raised an eyebrow as she looked down at the pilot. BB-8 nudging Poe’s leg trying to make sure his owner wasn’t actually broken, causing the man to chuckle.

“M’fine, Beebee.” He patted the BB unit’s dome, careful of the antenna the droid insist stay pristine since Rey fixed it the first time.

“He’s just being dramatic. He’ll survive.” Finn stated. Poe rolled his eyes, earning a laugh and a pat on the cheek from Rey as she went to sit down. The three spent a few minutes arguing what to eat for a late dinner before they ended up eating some sort of leftovers they figured wouldn’t kill them.

“If you are really that exhausted, maybe you should take a few days off.” Rey said as they put the dishes aside to take care of at some point. They wouldn’t lie, occasionally they’d come back to find their place cleaned. They’d been told it was because their time was too important and that they’d had someone come in and take care of it. None of them had known how to feel about that. They were not used to people taking care of them, or being in their home without them there. None of them were even really used to having a real home yet. Not long later they’d eaten they decided it was best to try and get some sleep.

It wasn’t an unusual occurrence for Poe to be standing in the living area at the window and staring out into the dimly lit night of the city. He didn’t sleep much these days. He would stare out the window at the city below. It was larger than the cities he’d known on on Yavin 4 or Kijimi. It hurt knowing that he’d never see Kijimi again, no one would. He was used to going resistance base to resistance base, like D’Qar or Ajan Kloss. Almost every planet they left during the resistance was altered beyond belief. He was used to living in temporary quarters that never really felt like home. It was just somewhere to sleep. The sleeping quarters on the Millennium Falcon felt more like home than most of those places, but having an actual place to call home felt weird. Home had been such a foreign concept for a long time but now they had a place with a physical address on a planet in the middle rim. Sure they did a lot of traveling still. They bounced around the various planets, making sure the planets that had been under the First Order were not just surviving now, but thriving. They had made it part of their goal for the council they were building, to get those planets in on it. Those were the planets with people that would need the most reassurance. They were the ones that were too hesitant to help them, but they’d give them a reason to trust them. If they couldn’t get these people to trust them, then how could they be sure they wouldn’t end up having backs turned towards them again?

“What’s haunting you this time?” 

Poe turned to see Rey smiling sadly at him. “Didn’t wake did I?”

“You didn’t.” The jedi grinned down at BB-8 and D-O.

“That’s not very nice you two.” Poe shook his head.

“It’s fine, they just didn’t want you getting lost your head, I guess.” Rey came over to stand beside him and looked out the window. “You didn’t answer my question.” She nudged his shoulder.

“Just got a lot on my mind.” Poe assured her.

“I don’t doubt it, but that doesn’t explain why you are staring out the window in the middle of the night.”

“Look out there, look at it.” He gestures to the city. “How did we end up in charge of making sure this city, and this planet, and the next one, and the one after that, and all the way to the outer rim, are on the same page?” He turns to look at Rey. “A smuggler, a stormtrooper, and-“

“A scavenger,” she finished for him.

“Now…now we’re running a galactic council to set up a new, new republic.” He left out the part where that republic has six fewer planets than the previous republic, including that Republic’s capital of Hosnian Prime and Kijimi, where he’d lost people he actually knew. Thankfully he still had Zorii and Babu Frik, but so many were gone now.

“You haven’t been a spice runner in years, Finn was never a stormtrooper at heart, and just like scavenging those were things we did to survive a war torn galaxy. We all did what we had to do to survive, until we ended up where we all needed to be so that our paths crossed. I know Finn gave you a lot of grief over being a smuggler, and I wish I could make you see that yes, you may have had more choice in being what you were, but did you really? The son of two Alliance officers. Your mother,” Rey reached forward and tugged gently at the chain that held his mother’s ring. “She was a Lieutenant, renowned Rebel pilot. Your father was a sergeant, a Rebel Pathfinder. Do you really think that when things started to get tough and the Republic began to fall that you could have done much else? Have you ever thought that maybe, just maybe those were skills that you would need to be the quick thinking leader you needed to be?”

“I’m not proud to have been a criminal.” Poe admitted. “Sure, I’m glad to have Zorii and Babu around, but…”

“But what?” Rey asked.

“But what if they knew?” Poe said.

“They who?”

“Them, all of them,” He gestured out to the planet they were on and beyond. “And all the other people in the galaxy, the ones that are still unsure that we can pull this off. There are plenty of people I can think of that wouldn’t be too pleased about following a criminal.”

“We were all criminals under the First Order, you realize that, right? It didn’t take much to be a criminal in their eyes. All you had to do was disagree with them and you became a target.”

‘That’s different, that’s-“

“Different.” Rey shook her head. “Han Solo was smuggler, who ran spice and anything else he could. Chewbacca right there with him. Are you saying no one should have trusted him? What about Lando? They all saved our lives, should they not have been trusted?”

“That’s…” Poe started to argue but found both Rey’s hands over his mouth.

“Han Solo was a smuggler, but he also earned metals and ranks by proving he was more than just what he’d done in his past. He spent a long time fighting alongside the Rebels, his friends and family. He died for believing that no one was beyond redemption. People love a redemption story. It reminds them that heroes can truly be anyone. Yes, there might be a few people that will forever think less of you, if and I do mean if, anyone told them. But, think about all those people who came to our aid when push came to shove. You, just like the rest of the resistance, the rest of us, were willing to die to protect people that didn’t understand what they were up against.”

He pulled Rey’s hands from his mouth, but didn’t let them go. He held them. “You did die. You died doing so much more than any of them could truly comprehend. You saved us.”

“It wasn’t just me.” Rey frowned, tears making her eyes gleam.

“I know, I’m sure Ben made his mom proud in the end. The two of you took down the man that corrupted and killed her father, the man who had enjoyed the destruction of her planet. He was the monster that tried to ruin her life on every level, yet he always failed to crush her spirit. He couldn’t take the hope she held in her heart away from her. He tried, came close. She’d be so proud of both of you.”

“She’s proud of all of us. I know it,” Rey smiles sadly. “I can feel it. She isn’t truly gone, no one ever really is. You know that. She’s part of the Force now, just like her brother and father before her. Just like the masters before them. They are all still here.” Rey squeezed his hands. “And they are so proud of what we accomplished. Leia loved us all like her own and there was no one she trusted to do the right thing more than you. Yes, even after everything that happened, there was no one she trusted with her team than you. She made you a general because she knew you had a good heart, and would-“ She was cut off when Poe pulled her into a bone crushing hugs. He wasn’t even trying to hide the few tears that had slipped out.

“I know we saved countless lives by taking down those ships, but you died to take down the biggest threat the galaxy ever faced. You died. Yeah, Ben brought you back, and that probably hurts more than actually dying.” Poe hugged her tight. “I should be the one comforting you. You lost someone you had devoted so much time to saving. You lost him and the only mother figure you ever had, your master. Both of your masters. We lost you, Rey. We did. For a tiny bit there you were on a very long list of people I lost and I didn’t even know it. Please don’t do that again.”

“What’s going on?” Both Poe and Rey look over at a confused and concerned Finn. “Please don’t tell me that someone else died. Did someone die?”

Rey smiled, pulling away from Poe. Poe pouted as she did, earning a teary laugh from the jedi. She squeezed his hand. “No, no one died.” Rey said.

“Just processing a bunch of stuff we probably should have already, but I’m stubborn and didn’t want to deal with it.”

Finn snorted. “You? Stubborn? Who would have guessed? So you going to tell me what the hugging and crying was about or is that-“ Finn was cut off when he found his arms filled with both Poe and Rey hugging him. “Umm…okay, not going to complain, but…”

“Just talking about the past, some of my failures and losses.” Poe said.

“And how the failures weren’t as bad as he thinks, they were necessary to become who we are now, to be able to accomplish everything we did.” Rey said.

“And then it got all emotional.” Poe said.

“And there was hugging.” Rey added.

“And now we’re hugging you.” Poe grinned.

“I can see that.” Finn said.

“So, no one died, and everyone is okay?” Finn asked.

“Yes.” Rey and Poe answered at the same time.

“Okay, good.” Finn nodded.

“Alright, time to sleep.” Rey said pulling away. Poe hadn’t budged.

“You sure you’re okay?” Finn asked Poe. “You were weird all day.”

“Better now.” Poe said, planting a kiss on Finn’s cheek, stunning Finn momentarily, the pilot taking the opportunity to tug Finn back toward the bedroom, snagging Rey’s hand in his other as he went. Rey shook her head, but let him bring her along with them. He dropped her hand when they got near the bed. Poe pulled Finn down with him, grinning when Rey laughed as Finn huffed in annoyance. Poe settled into the middle of the bed, only fully contented when Rey and Finn had settled on either side of him. Poe usually didn’t mind being in the middle. Sometimes it got a little warm, but about the only time he could ever sleep was like this, with the two important people in his life helping chase away the nightmares. Helping rebuild the society didn’t seem like an impossible task when he had these two by his side. They’d finish selecting and notifying the new council in the next few days. They’d do it together, with their friends, like they did everything else. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading.  
> Find my writings and send me prompts on tumblr @sortofanobsession


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